Chapter 6.1 - Meaning and Aims of Education according Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda was a great social reformer as we have seen in our second chapter. He aimed at both spiritual and material development of India. For solving all kinds of problems belonging to India he used education as the reliable tool. Swami Vivekananda had great faith in education. To him; this was the basic means for achieving human excellence and solving national problems. According to him there is not even one problem which can not be solved by this majestic word ‘Education’. His aim was to offer education to every Indian both formally and informally. To Vivekananda education was a man-making process which would mean arousing the people to an awareness of their own worth, dignity and responsibility. This would also mean making them the source of all the strength and sustenance of society, creating a society which will provide a healthy environment for the development of character and personality of all its children. Educational philosophy of Vivekananda and the aims of education together with the concept of education are founded on Vedanta philosophy, particularly the Advaita philosophy. The whole object of Vedanta philosophy is, by constant struggle, to become perfect i.e. to become divine, to reach God and to see God. The belief of this philosophy is that every human being is spirit (Atma), the soul which is immortal, evolving up or reverting back from birth to birth and death to death. According to this philosophy human soul is the storehouse of knowledge. Swami Vivekananda only reinterpreted the basics of Vedic philosophy in the context of 20th century man and the society.

Vivekananda has firm faith on education. So it is his conviction that there is no problem which cannot be solved by that magic word ‘education’. He defined education as the ‘development of faculty, not an accumulation of words’. To him education was meant for the training of individuals ‘to will rightly and efficiently’. He further said that the education that does not help the common mass of people to equip themselves for the struggle for existence, which does not bring out strength of character, a spirit of philanthropy, and the courage of a lion, is not true education. Real education, to him, is that by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased; the intellect is expanded and that which enables one to stand on one’s own leg. Vivekananda stressed the need to educate the millions of our common people to revitalize Indian culture. A nation is advanced in proportion as education and intelligence spread among the masses. National development rests upon the goodness and greatness of men; and goodness and greatness of men are determined largely by education.

Education for ‘total human development’ was the vision of Vivekananda which, he believed, could be achieved by refining and processing of eternal human energies through the science of man in depth (Adhyatma Vidya). Philosophy, the science, the art and studies of various other fields of knowledge could help nations in achieving this goal. Through education nations have to unfold the humanistic and divine possibilities lying hidden within their people and raise the levels from which their consciousness handles their external, natural and social environment. True education is that which does this. Vivekananda was deeply spiritual and intensely human. His message is the message of humanism. But his humanism has a deeper content. He said that education which gives us intellectual energy must also give us humanistic impulse and its energy of character. If man’s education combines these two energies he will become tremendously powerful. He will be endowed with a firm mind and will, and strength of muscle and nerve. Although Swami Vivekananda was an idealist and a spiritualist emphasizing realization of divinity in man, yet he was fully aware of the need for national development to be achieved through education.

He stressed education for democracy and said that strengthening of democracy was possible only through education. The strength of a democracy was seen to lie in its alert and patriotic citizens who could be produced and developed through education. All institutional education, socio-political education in a democracy, he held, should therefore be designed to produce citizens who are free, responsible, and politically aware, who feel to belong to the country in which they live, who are sensitive to what happens around them. Education should produce such enlightened democratic citizens. Thus, Vivekananda, emphasized education for democracy and citizenship. He, however, was in favour of creating an ethical basis of democratic politics through education. He stressed the need for developing democratic tolerance in the people and a sense of being truly free which could be fulfilled by properly organized and rightly conducted education.

Vivekananda’s educational philosophy had two major components of aims-one the individual aims and secondly the social aims. Under individual aims of education he emphasized total human development including physical, mental, social, cultural and spiritual development of the child. He did not leave out even the vocational development aim. In a way he stood as the embodiment of man-making education. Under the social aims of education he stressed education for citizenship and democracy, education for national integration, education for the poor and education for women, education for strengthening the whole society. In this way he stood for nation-building education. But, these two aspects were not considered by him as separate and independent. He brought a fine synthesis between the individual and the social aims of education when he said that they alone live that live for others; the rest are more dead than alive.